Photos from Houston
What a weekend in Houston! First sweep ever at Minute Maid Park and the first three-game sweep in Houston since 1990’s wire-to-wire World Series season. I took more photos to show you the park, which opened (with the now-blasphemous name of Enron Field) back in 2000.
.
| It’s the most "open" of the retractable-roof ballparks. This was before Friday night’s game. | That "thing" on top is the roof, which was retracted until mid-game on Friday night. | A replica of a 19th century locomotive rolls along tracks above that wall. Astros offices are housed in the building down the line. Some folks will watch games from the rooftop ala Wrigley Field. |
| . | ||
 |
||
| A very deep center field, 436 feet. That’s Tal’s hill in straight-away center field (ala Crosley Field). The pole under the US flag is in play. |
Early in Friday’s game. | Only 315 feet to left and only 362 to left-center. Those seats are known as the "Crawford Boxes," as the park is located on Crawford Street. |
| . | ||
| As rain begins to fall mid-game Friday, the roof begins to close. | It takes between 12 and 20 minutes to close, and the game continues uninterrupted. | Marty and I before the roof closed Friday night. |
| . | ||
| Saturday and Sunday the roof was closed. | Me and Astros broadcaster Dave Raymond in a camera well near the field during the 11th inning of Sunday’s win. Ryan Freel was the "Star of the Game." | Marty and fellow Hall-of-Fame voice Milo Hamilton, an Astros broadcaster. Milo’s recent autobiography is "Making Airwaves." |
| . | ||
| Me with Sigma Chi fraternity brother Brad Wilder and his fellow attorney Frank Onion (Reds bullpen coach Lee Tunnell’s high school teammate) at the Fox Sports Grille. | My cousin Jeff Nunn (the blacksheep of the family) with the "Bad Boy" at Pappasito’s, a popular Houston Mexican restaurant chain. As Marty would say, I was eating "like I was going to the electric chair." | |
| . | ||
The Bad Boy Blog 
Love all of your photos! Keep it up. You have a unique perspective and these types of photos are great.
This series has us all putting exclamation points after our sentences. The season has been exciting; even May wasn’t that bad with the losing. If the Reds can only beat the Cards…
If, if, if…
~Daedalus
http://www.baseballchurch.blogspot.com
Love the ballpark photos. Looking forward to seeing the pix from St. Louis. Have some fried raviolis for me, there great.
Bad Boy,
You’re a Sig Chi?!?!? Wow, and I was really starting to like you, but this changes everything. Just kidding.
I’m a Phi Delt, always have, always will. Keep Marty in line and keep up the great work!
Eric in Oxford
Steve,
Your pictures are great! I love to read your comments about the different parks and the area’s that you visit during the season. Keep up the great work !
Hey Steve – I thought it was funny that last night Marty was looking at your blog and commented that “it looked like you were going to the electric chair,” especially since that was the caption to the picture.
Keep up the great blog, man. This is the best blog ever!!
George, Dayton
Steve, I missed the conversation leading up to Marty B calling you the Diva of MLB. What was that all about? Love the blog! Awesome pictures. Thanks Steve.
The best part of MLBlogs is that whether you are a player, fan or journalist it gives you a place to share your thoughts and opinions on not only baseball but just about anything you want to share. The number of people and the places they come from is amazing to see each day! I recently had visitors to my MlBlog from Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, England, Taiwan and several other countries as well as almost all of the 50 states.
John
Check out my MLBlog at http://theballhawk.mlblogs.com
Regading the “Diva” comment, Marty continues to come up with new and creative nicknames for me and other members of our travelling party.
Marty uses a microphone on a stand, and has a set of headphones that look somewhat like a stethoscope, in order to hear his cues from Matt Steinman, our producer back in Cincinnati.
I’ve been using a full headset, with the mic and full headphones attached since I got to town. But with both my ears covered, it’s hard to hear the announcements in our booth from the official scorer. So I decided to use a mic on a stand, to keep my ears “open”. But since I didn’t have those stethoscope type headphones, I used the headset headphones while listening to Matt between innings. It looks pretty foolish, because it looks like I need two microphones, not just one.
Long drawn-out story, and of course the nickname is better than the story of its derivation…
St. Louis photos (including John Goodman) soon to follow…